


Mr. Claire or Mrs. Tritoh?

by botgal



Category: Hiveswap, Homestuck
Genre: Alien Culture, Blushing, F/M, If the alien in this case is human, Marriage, Ship Tease
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-26
Updated: 2017-10-26
Packaged: 2019-01-23 10:13:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12505072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/botgal/pseuds/botgal
Summary: While talking about her life on Earth, Joey explains the concept of human marriage to Xefros.It gets a bit more embarrassing than she bargained for.





	Mr. Claire or Mrs. Tritoh?

“And so- so then Jude-!” Joey stopped to give herself a moment to giggle. “Then Jude comes running pell mell into the house, shrieking at the top of his lungs. Our babysitter literally falls off of the couch and onto the floor. Tesseract jumps up and knocks the bear I'm treating off the table. And then he gets the front door shut but loses his grip on his box trap, and next thing we know we've got a pigeon zipping around our living room!”

Joey broke out into flat out laughter, Xefros joining in as she recounted the frankly hilarious tale.

“Then what happened, Joey?” Xefros asked as Joey wound down on laughing.

“What- what next?” She asked as she wiped at her eyes. “Oh. Well, the pigeon finally tired itself out flying around the room, and we lured it into a cage with some old bread we had lying around.” She stroked her fingers along Byers's back, smiling as the bird cooed in his sleep. “And that's how we got Byers. Though my babysitter and I told him no more catching pigeons after that. Jude cleaned the living room after that.” Well, sort of. He sort of gave up after a bit and the living room had already been a mess anyway.

“Wow... it sounds really nice where you come from, Joey.” Xefros leaned back against Mononoke as he contemplated Joey's stories about her home on Earth. Joey sighed as she leaned back, smiling a bit.

“Yeah... I guess it is. Well, it was pretty nice, but it wasn't really really great. There were still problems.” Even if they may not have been as bad as on the murderplanet that Alternia was.

“Like what?”

Joey sighed, her good mood now barely on simmering as she recounted.

“Well, our babysitter was pretty nice, but she had her problems. Pa was always gone, and even when he was home he was never really taking care of us. And I really didn't have any friends, since all the kids at my school were kind of awful and kept on making fun of me. So, you know, there's all that,” she sighed.

“Oh... Well, what about that boy you said you liked?” Xefros asked softly. “Mrs. Taylor Thomas80? Is he nice?”

“Oh! Oh him?” Joey blushed, shaking her head as she crossed her arms. Oh she still regretted ever letting that slip. “N-no. I mean. I didn't really _know_ him. I mean, he seemed cute, and nice. But really he doesn't know who I am.” For a number of reasons. “... And he's not 'Mrs.' Taylor Thomas. He's a 'Mr.' And his first name is 'Jonathan' And there's no '80' in his name, that's just numbers I added to the password.” Xefros's eyebrows contracted, and he seemed confused.

“But you said your password was his name, right?” he asked uncertainly. “I don't really even know what a 'Mrs.' is.”

“You don't?” Joey asked with surprise. “Well, you know. It's like, what you call yourself when you get married.”

“... Mah-reed?” Xefros asked, looking very confused. “What's that? A food?”

“What? No.” Joey looked at him like she couldn't believe he'd asked that. “You know, married. Like, when you have a big cake, and you say vows. Then you get a house and have kids because you love each other?” Xefros still blinked at her like a confused owl, and Joey racked her brain to think of a good Troll analogy that she knew of. “It's... It's kind of like when two people are matesprits, but you live together and do other stuff like that,” she finally decided, and Xefros let out an 'ooh' of understanding. “And... well, when you get married, you take on the other person's last name. And so do your kids.”

“Oh. So then...” Xefros rubbed at his arm, thinking aloud to process this. “... If... if we got married, then I'd be... Mrs. Xefros Claire?” Joey's whole face turned red at the insinuation, and she immediately put up her hands as if to stop him.

“N-no! I mean, that is.... 'Mrs.' is what the girl gets known as, the boy just stays 'Mr.'.”

“I see,” Xefros replied. He didn't. “So... 'Mr. Xefros Claire?” Joey groaned, pressing her palm to her cheek as she wondered how the conversation had gotten to this point. And why it felt so embarrassing to talk about.

“No, not that either. It's the girl who takes the boy's name. So if... if we went and got married, it would actually be me who changes my name... I'd be 'Mrs. Joey Tritoh'. As a complete hypothetical, of course,” she hurriedly finished up. “Not that we'd ever get married. You Trolls having your weird quadrant things, and us humans having our marriage thing. Completely different.”

“R-right. Completely.” Xefros did have a few more questions about it. Like what if two human girls or two human guys got human married. But from the way Joey was so red in the face, he guessed it might be good to stop asking questions now. She seemed like she didn't want to talk about it. (He hoped he didn't touch a nerve or something.) “... Well, um... I guess we should... get to sleep now. Long night of traveling tomorrow and all...”

“Right, right. We should... we should definitely do that,” Joey agreed. “So, um... goodnight.” She rolled over on Mononoke's side, curling in on herself under her jacket.

“Oh, okay, um... Goodday.” Xefros nuzzled himself up against the deercat lusus as well, letting his eyes close as he tried to drift off to sleep.

While Joey lay on her side, still wide awake. Pondering on why her mind stuck on two specific points in their conversation.

_Mr. Xefros Claire... or Mrs. Joey Tritoh..._

 

**Author's Note:**

> And here you can see me. Throwing more of my self indulgent garbage at y'all.  
> *throws my trash fics out before slam dunking back into my dumpster*


End file.
